On March 13, Clozd welcomed guests from Avalara, Qualtrics, and Armor Cloud Security for a discussion about win-loss analysis and why every product marketer should needs to be conducting win-loss interviews. Learn tips and best practices for three experienced product marketers.

Over time, and across thousands of win-loss interviews for clients in various industries, Clozd consultants have uncovered insightful trends relating to the impact pricing can have on vendor selection. It is a common decision factor, but not always in the way a sales rep might expect. This interview with Clozd founder Spencer Dent explores some of these pricing trends, which can be insightful for pricing and packaging teams, sales leadership, and sales enablement teams.

When conducting win-loss interviews, is it better to take a blind or non-blind approach? This blog post explores the merits of both methodologies, and explains why the predominant practice in the win-loss industry - and at Clozd - is to take a non-blind approach to win-loss interviewing.

One of the first questions we often hear from prospective clients is: “How many win-loss interviews should we conduct?” It’s an important question without a simple answer. To get to the best answer for your organization, here are some factors to consider.

While most organizations intuitively understand the value of win-loss analysis, execution of an effective win-loss program can often seem daunting and difficult. Clozd frequently speaks with organizations that are unable to capitalize on buyer feedback due to several common roadblocks. Let’s explore these common win-loss roadblocks and learn the best strategies for avoiding or overcoming them.

Where win-loss analysis becomes really powerful is when you begin to tag and track themes across interviews. This allows you to see what you’re doing well, what you’re doing poorly, where your efforts are yielding improvement, and where you need to focus next to improve your win rate. But while themes carry a lot of value, they bring pitfalls as well - after all, there is always some subjectivity involved in turning qualitative data (interviews) into quantitative data (trackable themes). So how do you create and track win-loss themes effectively? Here are some guidelines we have developed based on our experience conducting hundreds of win-loss interviews.

Are you looking to implement win-loss interviews and analysis at your own company? A great resource for insights and best practices is Pragmatic Marketing. The Pragmatic Marketing framework is the de facto standard for training product professionals since 1993. One of the practices encouraged and promoted by the framework is win-loss analysis.

As we run win-loss programs, we diagnose the symptoms and root causes of why our clients win and lose. Like a doctor, we see common symptoms across our “patients." This list highlights symptoms we look for and can serve as a great checklist for assessing the health of your business.

When a B2B deal goes south, the most common reason initially identified by both buyers and vendors is price. Of course, price runs through every decision, and no one loves shelling out cash. But, in conducting hundreds of win-loss interviews for high-profile clients, our team at Clozd has very rarely encountered situations in which the true driver of the deal turned out to be a raw difference in price. Instead, our in-depth conversations have yielded key insights on what a buyer really means when she says “the price was too high.” This blog post explores three common, underlying themes that could be the real problem with your pricing strategy.

In an ideal situation, a business' sample size would consist of it’s entire customer base (i.e., gathering data and feedback from every customer the business has won or lost a deal with). This approach would ensure a complete picture is painted, with representation of every size and shape of sales opportunity. However, conducting an interview with every prospect is neither feasible (economically) nor required (methodologically).

So, what is the right number of interviews to conduct? The short answer is . . . it depends.

Many of the organizations we talk to are implementing formal win-loss analysis for the first time. They've realized they need a more rigorous approach to win-loss, beyond just a drop-down field in the CRM; but, they aren't totally sure what to look for in a win-loss solution provider. So, here’s 13 must-haves to look for when selecting a win-loss partner.

Many of us at Clozd have years of experience working directly with survey feedback, and we recognize where this feedback is valuable. However, we’ve learned that when analyzing wins and losses in a complex B2B sales environment, surveys pose some unique challenges. Survey response rates and issues with data quality can prevent organizations from capturing the full story behind why they are winning and losing valuable business. If you are considering a survey-based approach to win-loss analysis, first consider these challenges.

When conducting B2B win-loss analysis, there are three common data sources that companies can turn to: the CRM, the sales team, and the buyer. This article explores each of these data sources, answering the question, "what is the best source of win-loss data?"